Catholic teachers told to accommodate Muslim students

CATHOLIC SCHOOLS with a majority of Muslim pupils should provide them with prayer rooms and allow them to adapt their uniforms, according to a leading Catholic expert on Islam.

Speaking at a Catholic teachers’ conference, Dr Chris Hewer, former interfaith adviser to the Anglican Bishop of Birmingham, said that Catholic schools have a vital role to play in combating religious segregation and stopping their Muslim pupils becoming radicalised.
His comments come after the Diocese of Salford transferred a Catholic primary school in Blackburn to the Church of England after it emerged that the overwhelming majority of pupils were Muslim.

Dr Hewer addressed teachers at a conference on 27 June held to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Teachers’ Enterprise in Religious Education, a voluntary group supporting staff in Catholic schools that is planning to release resources to help schools teach Islam. He later told The Tablet he saw no problem with Catholic schools having a majority of Muslim students.

“It does mean one gets out of the narrow framework of saying our church schools are only there to nurture our church members’ children,” he said, adding that schools must “pay full respect to [Muslims’] need for prayer facili­ties, for their own adaptation of school uniform, for the correct sort of collective worship, celebrating festivals, making sure they have access to education in their faith tradition”.

The Catholic Education Service said that Catholic schools exist primarily to help Catholic parents educate their children in the faith; however, a spokeswoman added that “Catholic schools are not exclusive to Catholic pupils, and are based on inclusive Christian principles.”
Cardinal Vincent Nichols, who celebrated Mass at the conclusion of the conference, said that  religious education was vital to combat extremism.

“Without a systematic, intelligent study of religion that starts from a point of deep respect and inculcates an appreciation of religious faith, we will be much more at risk from the dangers of extremism,” said the cardinal.

Dr Hewer warned teachers that they needed “a developed ­theology” of other faiths in order to teach them.